Baker questions urgency on mail-in voting

By Chris LisinskiState House News Service

Thursday

May 21, 2020 at 4:52 PM

MAY 21, 2020.....Gov. Charlie Baker does not share the same sense of urgency as the state's top elections officials and a range of advocacy groups about when officials must make a decision on how to conduct mail-in voting this fall.

In a wide-ranging interview on WGBH that also touched on investigations into deaths at the Holyoke Soldiers Home and how population density influenced the administration's COVID-19 reopening plan, Baker said Thursday that the Sept. 1 primary election and Nov. 3 general election are "a long way away."

Stakeholders have argued in recent weeks that state leaders need to find agreement as soon as possible on how to conduct upcoming elections in a way that minimizes COVID-19 risks so that local officials can prepare for the changes. On Wednesday, Common Cause Massachusetts Executive Director Pam Wilmot said a resolution "absolutely cannot wait another month."

Asked Thursday if he supports any of the bills that would send ballots by mail to every registered voter in the state, Baker replied, "I haven't really spent any time thinking about it."

"People think this is something that needs to happen soon?" he said. "The elections are a long way away."

Secretary of State William Galvin has also pushed for a resolution. When he unveiled his own plan to make mail-in ballots available by request to every voter, he said lawmakers and the administration need to give him the green light "very soon."

Certified nomination signatures are due to Galvin's office June 2, after which the secretary has said he wants to begin printing ballots as soon as possible and securing whatever materials will be necessary for widespread mailing. Galvin faces federally mandated deadlines for mailing general election ballots to overseas voters.

Baker signed legislation March 23 allowing no-excuse early voting by mail in annual or special elections through June, which set up greater use of mail-in ballots in two Senate special elections Tuesday. He told WGBH that those races are "a really interesting test case on whether or not that's an effective way to do it."

Without saying how it would influence him on a broader proposal, Baker said Thursday that he is interested to know what percentage of voters cast their ballots by mail in two Massachusetts Senate special elections on Tuesday, describing it as "a really interesting test case on whether or not that's an effective way to do it."

"I'm guessing that the vast majority of the votes that were cast in both those elections were probably mail-in, and it's much easier to do that on a smaller scale than on a bigger one," Baker said.

Galvin's office told the News Service on Thursday that, based on unofficial results reported by local clerks, more than 30 percent of total ballots cast in the two Senate districts were submitted by mail with some communities as high as 50 to 60 percent.

Other topics covered during Baker's 35-minute "Boston Public Radio" interview:

Holyoke Soldiers Home Investigations

Baker defended his administration's response to a massive COVID-19 outbreak at the Holyoke Soldiers Home, where he said that 74 of the 86 residents who died in recent months tested positive for the infectious virus.

In late March, shortly after reports about deaths in the facility became public, the administration replaced Bennett Walsh as superintendent of the home. Baker tapped former first assistant U.S. Attorney Mark Pearlstein to investigate the crisis, and both Attorney General Maura Healey and U.S. Attorney Andrew Lelling have launched their own inquiries.

Walsh later said that he had alerted state higher-ups about staff shortages and problems contributing to the outbreak and had been denied additional assistance.

Asked Thursday if he knew of any contact between Walsh and his administration while the illness was still spreading, Baker said he, Lt. Gov. Karyn Polito and Health and Human Services Secretary first heard about the problem in a Sunday, March 29 phone call with Holyoke Mayor Alex Morse.

"We had basically a whole team on the ground at eight o'clock the following morning on Monday, and Val Liptak, who has been the CEO of Western Mass. Hospital for a bunch of years, has been spectacular as the interim there with a lot of help from Holyoke Medical Center, from the Department of Public Health, from the National Guard, and from many others," Baker said.

The governor said he believes Pearlstein's investigation should be complete "sometime soon," and added that he is "not going to speak to these issues until I see the report."

"There's a lot of talk about who said what to who, and in the end, documents and emails and interviews will answer a lot of these questions," he said.

Population Density Impacts

Explaining the phased-in economic reopening approach his administration is pursuing, Baker said the experience amid the pandemic has been "dramatically different" depending on region.

About 80 percent of the COVID-19 cases and deaths nationwide were concentrated in just 10 states and the District of Columbia, he said. Among four Northeast states hit the hardest -- New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts and Connecticut -- all have large populations concentrated in relatively small areas.

Some commenters have asked why the administration is planning a slow ramp-up for the entire state, Baker said, rather than impose different policies in Boston and in the less dense regions around it. He argued that would not be possible because of the state's population density and the interconnected nature of its economy.

"We're a heck of a lot smaller geographically than New York is or Pennsylvania or some of these other states, and we have people everywhere," Baker said. "We're not as open spaced -- we're way denser than most of these other places, and that factors in a big way as to whether you can do stuff regionally or not."

Statewide Testing Capacity

Massachusetts has capacity to process about 30,000 tests for COVID-19 per day, but the Department of Public Health typically reports results of between 6,000 and 14,000 new tests every day.

The reason for that gap, Baker said, is that processing capacity does not match specimen collection and transportation capacity. While laboratories in Massachusetts can examine about 30,000 tests to see if they are positive, there is not sufficient infrastructure to swab 30,000 people per day or get those samples into labs.

One step that could help line up the numbers is distribution of self-administered tests rather than the current nasal swab tests that typically require a person to conduct it, something Baker said is in the works.

"There's a lot of work that's gone on in that space over the course of the past few months, and I fully expect that by the time we get to this summer, I think you'll probably see cheek swabs that can be self administered, nasal swabs that can be self administered, a big change in the sort of mechanism that's available to collect the sample in the first place, and a lot more transport media to get it to testing facilities," he said.

Public Transit Service

Host Margery Eagan Braude brought up a photo that circulated on social media earlier this week, apparently showing significant crowding on an MBTA bus despite social-distancing guidelines, and asked Baker why the T does not plan to start increasing service until the second phase of reopening that is at least three weeks away.

The governor replied that he would follow up with MBTA leaders about the specific incident, but said ridership has been "unbelievably light" based on figures officials track. MBTA General Manager Steve Poftak has said ridership is about 90 percent below pre-pandemic averages on subways and about 80 percent on buses.

"We track the number of people riding the various parts of the system on a daily basis and will as we go forward," Baker said. "But the numbers are really light."

The administration has emphasized working from home as a key step businesses should take as they reopen to keep transit seats available to essential workers with no other options, and Baker said Thursday that limiting office capacity to 25 percent in the first reopening stage should also help avoid crowding on the T.